Production Process Management with PM2

In production environments, Node.js applications must run continuously, restart automatically on crashes, and scale across CPU cores.

What is PM2?

PM2 is a production process manager for Node.js applications with a built-in load balancer.

Essential PM2 CLI Commands

bash

### Install PM2 globally
npm install -g pm2

### Start server process with a custom name
pm2 start server.js - name "express-api"

### Scale across all available CPU cores using Cluster Mode
pm2 start server.js -i max - name "express-cluster"

### View running process status list
pm2 list

### Monitor CPU & Memory usage in real time
pm2 monit

### View aggregated logs
pm2 logs

### Restart or Stop process
pm2 restart express-api
pm2 stop express-api

### Save PM2 process list to restore on system reboot
pm2 save
pm2 startup

TL;DR

• PM2 automatically restarts failed Node.js applications.
• pm2 start server.js -i max runs Node in Cluster Mode across all CPU cores.
• pm2 startup ensures server process auto-launches on server reboot.